Whittaker 01 The Enemy We Know (3 page)

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. I turned away, heading for the sanctuary of my office.

“
Letty?”

I turned back.

“
I’m afraid I have to insist. I’m sure if you take some time to think it over, you’ll agree. Besides, it’ll give you a chance to catch up on your paperwork. I’d like us to meet today, later on.”

Irritation bubbled up but I kept it from leaking out through my face or voice. “You’ll need to catch Lisa before she calls everyone back.” I’d be damned if I was going to face her moody eyebrows again.

Uncharacteristically, I shut the office door, closing myself off from the bustle of the clinic. Closing myself
in
. Also uncharacteristically, I toyed with the idea of rearranging my furniture. Like into one big pile barricading the door.

My office was no longer a sanctuary.

Pissed me off so bad I opened the door, then flung myself down in the chair. Three seconds later, I slammed it shut again and sat back down, holding my face tucked behind my hands.

Not good. Not good, not good, not good.

I buried myself in the backlog of paperwork, telling myself it was a good thing I had something to keep me busy. It wasn’t. First of all, it wasn’t nearly intense enough to keep at bay the images of Wayne’s rage. I’d think I was making progress, then realize my muscles were twitching with edginess, nerve synapses miscuing and sending me into unnecessary panic-mode. My fight-or-flight button was stuck in the ON position.

For another thing, writing was almost impossible with my throbbing hand.

When Mary Kate tapped on my door, I nearly exploded from my skin. She came in like an irresistibly bouncy puppy, gushing equal parts solicitude and nosiness. Despite the fact I’d asked for the meeting, I was irritated at her energy.

Also, like a puppy, she’d attached herself to me from the beginning of our acquaintance. At some point, she’d gotten the impression that I’d specifically requested to mentor her internship, when in fact it was Marshall who was in charge of the assignments. Although older than most interns—in fact more than seven years older than me—Mary Kate exuded an eager vulnerability, making her seem much younger.

Completely devoid of fashion sense, she was constantly twitching her too-large skirts back from their meandering circuit around her hips, constantly retucking blouses into the front of her slacks while forgetting about the back, and—although she’d never to my knowledge had toilet paper stuck to her shoe—something made me anxiously check her foot for offenders every time she exited the bathroom.

Supervision with Mary Kate was always interesting. She possessed an innate understanding of people, and her insatiable curiosity to
know
her clients, inside and out, stood her in good stead. That same desire could be a pitfall, however. In supervision, we were working on her need to recognize the danger signs of over-involvement and how to establish boundaries. We hadn’t gotten very far.

Trying to redirect the conversation away from yesterday’s ordeal and back to her internship was like trying to thread a hysterical chicken through a needle. Not gonna happen.

“
Oh my gosh, I couldn’t believe it when I heard some psycho had you trapped in here! I thought my heart was going to stop. I’m just so glad nothing happened to you.”

“
Mary Kate…” We needed to talk about her choice of words. “Psycho” wasn’t a favored label in the clinic.

“
I mean, nothing
really
bad. Of course, just being held hostage is bad enough, don’t get me wrong. If the police hadn’t shown up when they did, who knows what could have happened. But I bet you probably could have talked him down if you had more time.” She smiled, her confidence in me as humbling as it was alarming.

“
I doubt that, Mary Kate. I didn’t have a lot of history with this guy. I wasn’t having much success before the police got here and, besides, it’s important to realize that we can
never
be certain of containing a situation like that.”

“
No, but you did know some of his history, though, right? Through Carrie?”

I was too startled to reply. Our client list is confidential. Despite the uproar yesterday, and even though Wayne’s relationship with me was sure to be disclosed, there was no reason why Mary Kate should have known of Carrie or of Wayne’s connection to her.

“
I snuck back,” she said.

“
You did
what
?”

“
When Marshall cleared everyone out yesterday, I snuck back to Regina’s office.” Mary Kate pointed to the wall separating my office from my co-worker.

“
Why would you do that, Mary Kate? That was so dangerous! Who’s to say the guy wouldn’t have killed me and then gone on a killing spree? That happens all the time these days.”

“
I would have heard that and could have run away before he got out. But, I don’t know… I know it sounds stupid, but I didn’t want you to be alone with him. I knew I couldn’t do anything, really, but if it turned into one of those murder-suicides, we’d at least know
why
.”

I’m trained to hear the most awful things and stay impassive, but listening to Mary Kate blithely discourse on my hypothetical murder nearly did me in. The fact that she’d hunkered down, ear pressed to the wall as Wayne toyed with my life, upset me so much I couldn’t figure out how to respond.

I finally just sent her away, and slipped out back behind the dumpster for an illicit cigarette. Although one or two of my colleagues smoked, too, we were all ashamed of it, treating the subject as taboo. Marshall, a health nut, was known to slip the 800-number to the Tobacco Quit Line on our desks when we weren’t looking. He’d even initiated an incentive program for those trying to meet health-related goals. He was weird that way.

By the time I met with Marshall, I had a raging headache and serious chinks in the wall of denial I’d erected about coming in today. Marshall was either too nice or too smart to say “I told you so,” but the glint of it twinkled behind his eyes.

“
How are you holding up?” he asked.

I debated my answer. If I denied any repercussions, he’d know I was lying and might very well push for an extended leave of absence. If I admitted that my office felt more like a crime scene than a safe haven, same thing. Luckily, I hadn’t been sober long enough to lose my tell-just-enough-truth-to-make-the-lie-seem-plausible skills.

“
I have a pounding headache, and I wanted to throttle Mary Kate just now in supervision.”

Marshall’s grin sparkled. “Just
wanting
to throttle interns isn’t cause for alarm. You didn’t act on it, I take it?”

“
No, I restrained myself.” I considered filling him in on Mary Kate’s voyeuristic grand adventure, but decided not to yet. For one thing, her revelations upset me too much to evaluate her behaviors from a supervisory perspective. Objectivity is critical in performing both supervision and therapy, and I didn’t want Marshall doubting mine. More importantly, I didn’t want to rake up all the nitty-gritty details of my ordeal. I’d gone over it with the police, but only because I’d had to.

“
Have you heard from the police?”

I jumped as if he’d read my mind. “No, not yet.”

Marshall looked at me curiously. My passivity in not contacting the police was an admission of sorts, and we both knew it.

Time to go on the offensive. “Has administration decided whether to support me or not?”

“
I hope you know you will always be supported here, Letty.” Marshall’s hurt and sincerity shown in his eyes. I almost felt guilty—until he went on. “Even if they disagree with you on an issue that doesn’t mean they don’t want what’s best for everyone.”

“
But you can’t please everyone, Marshall. And in this case, it sounds like the clinic will take care of itself, first and foremost.”

“
Wouldn’t any entity? It’s survival. If administration doesn’t make the clinic its number-one priority, then we’re all out of a job. What good is that to us or to the community? And it has the board to answer to as well. There are all sorts of complications in a situation like this and, frankly, no easy answers.”

“
Explain to me how letting a dangerous man go scot-free is a service to the community.”

Marshall ran his fingers through his dark hair. I’d seen him do that before in meetings when he was about to announce an unpopular policy change.

“
What am I missing here, Marshall?”

“
He’s denying ever having stabbed you. He says you cut yourself, that you broke the glass and slashed at your own neck.”

I stared blankly. Dread rose in my chest as a horrible suspicion bloomed. “Why would I do that?”

“
He says…” Marshall cleared his throat. “He told the police the two of you were having an affair. That you wanted him to leave his girlfriend.”

“
That’s crazy!”

“
We know that. Unfortunately, the police haven’t found the knife. There are a lot of ways for this story to get twisted. It’s obvious that he needs treatment.”

“
He can get therapy in prison.”

“
I know how you feel, but the clinic itself is not in the business of punishment; we’re more concerned with him receiving treatment. If the clinic gets the reputation for prosecuting clients, how many do you think will trust us to provide services?”

White-hot rage washed through me. “What do you mean? Are you saying the clinic will be offering him services? Am I going to have to worry about running into him in the halls here?”

In the face of my anger, Marshall ditched the party line. “I’m against that. I really am.” I waited for the worst. “It probably won’t go anywhere because of the conflict of interest, but there is some talk about offering… uh, Wayne… anger management therapy as a sort of image clean up. I really don’t think anything will come of it.”

I literally could not speak.

“
Letty?”

“
Don’t.
” I put up a shaky hand; my right hand, the white bandage a visible symbol of the betrayal, hung in the air between us. Struggling to stay in control, brain sizzling and popping like water dripped in hot grease, I rose unsteadily from the chair. Marshall rose, too, distress etching lines into his face, dark brown eyes never leaving mine.

Before I’d taken two steps, he was around the desk. His hands like two bands of heat, circled my shoulders, holding me fast.

“
I promise. I promise I won’t let them. You won’t have to deal with him. I
promise
.”

His eyes—so dark they were almost black—pouring into my own, held me tighter than his hands. I didn’t pull away. I don’t know where the moment would have led if Lisa hadn’t knocked at the door.

The dramatic gave way to the ludicrous. At Lisa’s knock, we fell apart like guilty teenagers when her parents walk through the door. I scrambled for the chair, and Marshall’s giant steps got him as far as the corner of the desk when Lisa popped her head in. He tried leaning James Dean-casual against the desk edge but knocked a potted plant over with his ass.

Lisa, trained in the nuances of office life, kept her face frozen in efficiency, but her eyes were backlit with astonishment and curiosity. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but I wanted to let Letty know that she has a client asking to see her today.”

“
What’s the problem? Is it an emergency?” I struggled for normalcy, but giggles rose like frothy bubbles.

“
It’s Carrie.”

I sobered up. Lisa went on, “I tried to ask her to come in tomorrow since your schedule’s been cleared. Anyway, she said she’s leaving, and this is the only time she has. She really wants to see you.”

“
Leaving? As in, leaving town?” Lisa’s shrug was eloquent. She’d given me all the information she had. “Have her come in, please. Whenever she’s available. If necessary, I’ll have someone sit in with me.” I looked helplessly at Lisa. Given the ethical complications, it would be smart to have a third-party present, but I hated imposing on my co-workers.

“
I’ll check to see who’s available. Mary Kate, probably. Carrie said three o’clock would work for her. I’ll let her know to come ahead.”

“
Great,” I said, not meaning it. “Put her down for three.” I rose, using Lisa’s presence to prevent an awkward moment with Marshall.
What just happened?
When I looked back at him, he nodded once, a wry smile twitching at his lips.

Walking next to me, Lisa exuded a wickedly silent mirthfulness. I fled to my office, the non-sanctuary.

Once there, I decided to call Robert. No reason, really. None.

As a real estate agent, he was usually pretty busy, and we had a tacit understanding that I wouldn’t bother him at work. We’d been dating for a little more than three months, which was a source of contention between myself and my sponsor, Sue. AA dissuades newcomers from making any major decisions in our first year of sobriety, and that certainly includes relationships. I’d been sober just over a month on our first date. Sue didn’t like that Robert had ignored that, and she didn’t like that he lived in the Twin Cities, an hour and a half west. We saw each other on weekends when he’d come in to Chippewa Falls for his AA meeting.

I expected his voice mail to pick up. It wasn’t until he’d said hello twice that I finally squeaked a greeting.

“
Hi! Have you got a few minutes?”

“
Just barely.” His voice sounded pressured. “What’s going on?”

I hated feeling rushed. “Oh, nothing. We just hadn’t talked in a while so—”

“
Listen, hon. How about I give you a buzz tonight? I have someone coming for a showing in about twenty minutes.”